It is known that insects, and particularly flying insects, can transmit diseases to humans. For this reason, and to be able to comply with the general hygiene requirements set for buildings in which food products are stored or sold, such as food shops, butcher's shops, supermarkets and so on, attempts are made to keep out insects as much as possible. In cases where exclusion of insects is not readily possible for whatever reason, for instance because the entrance doors to the space are opened often, it is important to catch these insects as quickly as possible.
Certain conventional devices for this purpose include a lamp which emits powerful ultraviolet (UV) light. Insects are attracted by this UV light, so that the insects can be lured to a determined location. In the vicinity of the UV lamp, for instance around the lamp, such a device has an electrically charged cage. When the insect, attracted by the UV light, touches the cage it is electrocuted. The insect is thus eliminated. The body of the electrocuted insect falls downward under the influence of the force of gravity into a receptacle which is provided on the underside of the device and which is cleaned periodically.
A drawback of such an electrocuting device is that, due to the electrocution of the insect, the body explodes into many parts. A number of these parts come to lie in the receptacle, but other parts of the body are spread through the space. This is undesirable, particularly in those situations where the electrocuting device is situated in the vicinity of food products.
In order to obviate this drawback, in certain catching devices, the insects, once they have been attracted by the UV light, are not electrocuted but become stuck on a sheet provided with an adhesive layer, also referred to as glue sheet. Once an insect touches this glue sheet it is caught thereby, and the insect can no longer fly further. The insects are therefore caught without causing damage to their body, and there is no chance of exploded body parts of the caught insect being spread through the space. In addition to preventing exploded parts, the glue sheet provides the advantage that caught insects can be dissected (when undamaged). It is known to arrange such catching devices in a holder and to place them on a post, or to fix them to a wall of the space. Such a catching device does however have a number of drawbacks.
Firstly, the catching device arranged against the wall or placed on an individual post or plinth takes up quite a lot of space, which space, for instance in shops, is often of great commercial value. When a catching device provided with a glue sheet is, for instance, screwed to a wall so as to protect food products placed on a number of shelves of a wall rack, the wall rack cannot contain any food products at the position of the catching device, and this prevents an efficient use of the wall surface area.
A further drawback is that the insects, once they have been caught on the glue sheet, can be seen quite clearly by the users of the space. When the catching device is, for instance, placed at eye level against a wall, which is not unusual, the glue sheet of the catching device strewn with caught insects will be visually intrusive to the user, which may give the user a disagreeable sensation. A further drawback is that special measures must often be taken to allow for correct mounting of the catching device on the wall.
Japanese Published Patent Application No. 2002-300837 describes an insect catcher mounted on the ceiling. The insect catcher is constructed from a support which is mounted on the ceiling and on which a movable holder provided with a lamp is arranged via a number of rods. By placing the catching device on and/or in the ceiling, the commercially important walls of the space can be used more efficiently. Since users, for instance, the shopping public, generally do not tend to look upward, the glue sheet with the insects caught thereon is less likely to be noticed.
The holder takes a movable form so that it can be recessed into the ceiling when no insects have to be caught, and displaced downward when the unit is used as an insect catcher. This construction is however quite complex and thereby susceptible to malfunction. The lamp for attracting the insects is moreover arranged in the movable part of the holder, which requires special measures for the electricity supply, and furthermore reduces the dimensions of the catching space, i.e., the space within which insects are attracted by the device. In the situation where it is recessed into the ceiling, the device further occupies a great deal of height, partly as a result of the fact that in such a situation the rods from which the holder hangs protrude above the support.